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Critics on the right and left are warning President Obama that he could face impeachment over actions he might take against the Syrian regime.

GOP Sen. John McCain tells KFYI, a Phoenix radio station: “No one wants American boots on the ground. Nor will there be American boots on the ground because there would be an impeachment of the president if they did that.”

On the “Smiley & West” radio show, host Tavis Smiley makes the case against a strike on Syria if Congress doesn’t approve action: “If the president doesn’t get the vote that he wants… then I hope he has more sense than to go ahead anyway.” Cornel West, the prominent black intellectual and Princeton professor, replies: “You would think in some ways grounds for impeachment.”

Only Presidents Andrew Johnson and Clinton have been impeached, but the “I” word has popped up often.

In June 1941, Rep. Clare Hoffman (R-Mich.) said he wanted FDR impeached for, among other things, “taking us into a war which the American people do not want.” Nixon + Watergate = impeachment proceedings. Presidents Carter, Reagan and both Bushes got caught up in calls for their impeachment, mostly from one lawmaker who was jokingly referred to by his House colleagues as Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Impeachment), NPR reports.

Military suicides

The role of life insurance has not been closely examined in the quest to understand why 352 service members took their lives last year, writes Alan Zarembo in the Los Angeles Times.

The suicide rate began rising sharply in 2005, he notes, the same year that Congress raised the standard coverage from $250,000 to $400,000, which most service members carry. If they die on active duty, their families also receive a $100,000 “death gratuity.”

Nazi show business

In the 1930s, Nazi Germany’s consul in Los Angeles, Georg Gyssling, was sometimes allowed by the movie studios to read scripts, see early screenings and demand — occasionally successfully — deletions from films, according to “The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler.” David Denby in The New Yorker explores whether Hollywood placated the fascists in the run-up to World War II.